Underdog blog

I grapple with many straightforward marketing questions despite years of education and experience in the field. It's frustrating. Will this ever end? Will I never feel I have a solid understanding of this subject that I've turned into my career? And it's not just me - it feels like a common issue for many marketers. Take, for example, the concept of a brand. A more central idea in marketing hardly exists, yet, ask ten experienced marketers to define the concept, and each has a different version. Most marketers need a paragraph to describe their interpretation of a brand instead of using a standardised, short, sharp definition. And so, here I am on the back of a career spanning 20 years, two marketing degrees, multiple short courses, hundreds of books and articles, thousands of hours, and I am still, like many, unclear of even the seemingly basic. What is a brand? Uhm...well, here's my definition...(which is likely different from my last one). I work in a field of almost

Something they don't tell you when you start on your own as a consultant: there are no rules to it - you make it up as you go and as you gain confidence. It's up to you how you want to do it. It's more art than science. I find it quite amazing. There's no right or wrong way to consult, especially as an independent. Take, for example, the near cast-in-stone rule that diagnosis should precede strategy. Although true, I'm finding that I often do diagnosis and strategy almost at the same time as I interact with business owners and marketing directors. Since I only focus on small and midsized clients, I tend to work with organisations with flat structures where decision-makers still have front-end contact with the market. Information is often already in the room - it just needs to be sorted.  One could argue that this is taking shortcuts, but I've found delaying the strategy discussion "till next time" ignores the reality of the moment where a certain insig